What
organizations need now more than ever are resilient leaders willing to be bold
and lead their people through change. Times are disruptive. Supply chain issues remain. Employee morale may
be at its lowest level in years. We are all still recovering from the effects
of the pandemic.
Unfortunately,
the burden rests on the shoulders of leaders. But you can lead your people
through these unprecedented times by developing and displaying the qualities of
resilient leaders throughout the ages.
Harvard
Business School Professor Nancy Koehn states:
“Resilience
is the capacity to not only endure great challenges but get stronger in the
midst of them. This is such an extraordinarily important capability because we
live in a world that’s one nonstop crisis—one calamity, one emergency, one unexpected,
often difficult surprise—after another, like waves breaking on the shore.”
Eight Characteristics
of Bold & Resilient Leaders
1) Self-Awareness
Everyone is
watching you. Are you watching yourself? One of the most difficult tasks of
leaders is to be self-aware. When surveyed, people think they have high levels
of self-awareness, but when tested, the percentage of people with true
self-awareness is low.
Self-awareness
makes you an observer of your actions and emotional responses. You take back a
measure of control over how you respond to the events that happen in your life.
The most interesting outcome of self-awareness is that it actually makes you
more open and empathic to others, allowing you to communicate with them more
effectively.
Self-awareness
is a key trait in becoming more resilient because you understand how you
respond to stress and recognize the stressors in your life. Knowing your
stressors allows you to build systems to manage their impact on your
performance.
2) Delegates to Develop
In order to accomplish
great outcomes and inspire the people around you, you must focus on your
strengths and what the organization really needs from you. This will require
you to delegate those tasks to keep you from doing those high-priority-focused
actions.
Delegation
is difficult because we are fearful others won’t do the tasks up to our
standards. Guess what? They won’t be. In fact, it may be better, and it will
always be different. Don’t despair over this. Rather than delegating to remove
work from your plate, view delegation with a second purpose — team development.
You allow your people to develop new and deeper skills when they take on your
tasks. Yes, they may not do it perfectly the first time, but you can coach them
through the task and have conversations on how to improve.
Once your
people develop the skills to tackle tasks that once distracted you, you’ve
increased your own workload capacity and the teams.
3) Confronts with
Compassion
Confrontation
is a necessary part of leadership. While there may be a handful of leaders who
relish the opportunity to prove themselves right and put others in their place,
the majority of us dread those difficult conversations. In fact, the leader who
finds joy in “toxic” confrontation creates a culture of fear and easily diminishes
morale throughout the organization.
Rather than
going into a difficult conversation without preparation, it is helpful to have
frameworks that you can practice and role-play. When I coach clients in navigating difficult conversations, I provide a framework they can fall back onto that creates confidence, and immediately empowers the conversation. Also,
remember to make confrontation a conversation where you hold accountable but
seek to understand. The goal is to change behavior and hold responsible but due
so with respect and honor, so the relationship stays intact.
4) Continuous
Learner
When you
read biographies on great leaders throughout history, you rarely find one who
isn’t a reader and continuous learner. Building on the other competency of
self-awareness, part of focused learning should always be to enhance areas of
weaknesses. Being curious and willing to expand your knowledge base even
outside your industry and areas of expertise. Often the best ideas related to
innovation come from interacting with spheres outside our normal work.
Being a
continuous learner also means having a growth mindset. Rather than living in a
fixed world where no improvement can occur, you deeply believe change is
possible in yourself and others. This motivation is what drives you to explore
and continue to learn.
Learn to see
every challenge and obstacle as the ability to grow and become stronger, more
resilient, and bold in action.
5) Risk Taker
It may be an
urban legend, but Albert Einstein is reported to have said “The definition of
insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different
results.” This accurately describes why leaders are willing to change and take
risks. Even the best plans and operational strategies miss the mark. Everyone
may be working productively and following plans at a high level, but metrics
don’t seem to move. You aren’t getting closer to your objectives.
This is
where leadership is needed. Leaders must step in and make the best decisions to
shift course. This is often seen by those inside the organization as risky, but
staying put and doing the same unproductive action is a greater risk.
Taking risks
and communicating those changes clearly to your team is the hallmark of a great
leader. Sharing a vision of where the new changes will take them and how it
will improve their own performance will garner support and build motivation.
6) Optimistic
Resilient
leaders are optimistic regarding their people and the future of the
organization. This is not pollyanna positive thinking where you ignore reality
with fake smiles. That type of positive thinking can easily be labeled as
“toxic positive”. You place a veneer of optimism on a bad situation without
taking action to make things better.
The true
optimist has a vision of a better tomorrow, recognizes the challenges, and
makes the necessary changes to get to that vision. Communicating this type of
optimism is magnetic and encourages people to follow your lead because you are
supporting them to reach their goals regardless of the obstacles they may
encounter.
7) Communicates with Clarity
In a recent
Interact/Harris poll, 91% of 1000 employees believe their leaders lack good communication
skills. The biggest problem with communication is we all tend to make it one
way. For communication to have the clarity it needs to persuade, inspire, or
instruct it must be part of a conversation. You have to understand to be
understood.
Most of us
know this but in the rush to distribute instructions or deliver information we
often communicate with the assumption that we are being understood. To
communicate with clarity, we must always check to see if our message is being
heard. This can only happen through conversation.
8) Relationship Focused
People are
your number one asset in your organization. Just like any asset, it can grow or
possibly become a liability. A resilient leader builds a resilient team by
deepening the skills and talents of the team.
Relationships
can drive progress toward objectives. You bring others along your resilient
journey by building trust and being open to differences. When you deepen the
relationship with your people, they will be willing to make dramatic changes
and accomplish outcomes they could never have done on their own.
Becoming a
resilient leader can dramatically improve the quality of your employees and
team members. You become the example they mirror. Your resilience and boldness
begin to rub off and create a culture that becomes stress-proof and focused on
achieving growth and objectives.
To your greater success and fulfillment,
Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT
Take the Next Step...
Interested
in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability,
culture, and employee engagement? We begin with a collaborative
discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To
request an interview with Peter Mclees please
contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com or Mobile:323-854-1713
Smart
Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers,
ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food
production facilities, wealth management services, third-party maintenance providers, real estate services,
nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong
culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork
necessary for growth.
Having worked with several companies
throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies
that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company
achieve sustained growth and prosperity.
